Canadian drug ban defied in N.H.

New Hampshire Governor Craig Benson launched a state-sponsored website yesterday that allows consumers to connect to a Canadian Internet pharmacy, defying a federal ban on drugs from foreign countries.

''To not look at Rx re-importation as a common-sense solution would be irresponsible," Benson tells New Hampshire residents on the website, labeled RxNew Hampshire. ''My administration will take the necessary steps to provide affordable healthcare."

The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning but stopped short of saying it would take any action. Benson joins the governors of Minnesota and Wisconsin, who have also set up Canadian-drug websites. Legislatures in Massachusetts and other states are considering bills to set up similar sites.

Last year, Benson said he would set up a website with ordering information for Canadian pharmacies as an antidote to soaring US drug prices. He decided to seek federal permission, which delayed the project. At the same time, Benson quietly began laying the groundwork for a launch without permission.

He sent emissaries to Canada in February, to review safeguards at an Internet pharmacy. And, without identifying himself as governor, he used his own credit card to order six drugs from Canadian pharmacies. He then asked the New Hampshire state Board of Pharmacy and the state crime lab to perform a comparison with drugs from pharmacies in New Hampshire. The Canadian drugs got a clean bill of health.

''The pharmaceutical industry has balanced their books on the backs of seniors for too long," Benson said in a statement released yesterday. ''They line their pockets through scare tactics and misinformation."

The FDA said Benson's website is illegal and could provide an avenue for unsafe drugs to reach US consumers. The visit by the governor's representatives to a Canadian pharmacy, as well as the state crime lab analysis, are not proof of safety, the agency said. It called the inspectors untrained and said the laboratory analysis was inconclusive.

''We have said repeatedly that we hope it never comes down to having to sue one of these states," said William Hubbard, the FDA's associate commissioner for policy and planning. ''It may come down to having to ask a federal judge to referee this situation at this point. Clearly, we believe these are illegal activities."

Prescription drugs are 20 to 80 percent cheaper north of the border because of Canadian government price controls, which has drawn hundreds of thousand of US consumers to the trade. The FDA has largely looked the other way. Since last summer, the City of Springfield has had a drug-importation program for city employees and retirees, and Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino plans to set up a program for a limited number of employees in July.

Visitors to the New Hampshire website, which is linked to the governor's official home page, are directed to CanadaDrugs.com, an Internet pharmacy that operates in an industrial park on the outskirts of Winnipeg, Manitoba. The pharmacy is one of the largest in Manitoba, the province that has most aggressively encouraged growth in the Internet drugstore business.

The state's website has links to a report on the findings of two New Hampshire pharmacists, one of them an employee of the state Department of Corrections who visited CanadaDrugs.com on the governor's behalf on Feb. 24. They reviewed procedures and inspected facilities during their six-hour visit.

The website also contains a link to the detailed laboratory analysis of the drugs Benson ordered. The analysis said the drugs contained the same active ingredients, but noted differences in packaging: Drugs from Canada came in sealed, manufacturers' containers; drugs from US pharmacies had been repackaged at the pharmacy and came in drugstore vials.

Despite the pages of documentation that Benson uses to assert safety on the website, Hubbard, of the FDA, said there is no way to ensure that drugs from Canada are safe. Without some kind of regulatory oversight, he said, ordering such drugs carries inherent risks.

The FDA said it has conducted ''sweeps" of US mail facilities and found hundreds of examples of ''unapproved" drugs from overseas. But critics of the agency's tactics say the sweeps proved nothing, except that US law does not recognize imported drugs.

Christopher Rowland can be reached at crowland@globe.com.